Shelley Duvall

Why people hate Shelley Duvall in the Shining (including Stephen King and Kubrick) I guess she doesn't fit in their idea of a horror film scream queen.

Stephen King isn't a fan of the film and insulted Shelley Duvall's character because she wasn't similar to the blonde super model version in his book. Also, Kubrick verbally and emotionally abused Shelley during the filming

by Anonymous

reply 136

10/16/2018

How did someone as homely as Shelley Duvall even manage to get a career as a leading lady?

by Anonymous

reply 1

10/11/2018

I’ve never heard people say they hate her in The Shining. That’s news to me.

by Anonymous

reply 2

10/11/2018

I can understand why people think she’s annoying, but I found her a sympathetic character. As a woman in that situation, she was trying to make the best of it. And she rallied at the end. Of the movie, anyway. I couldn’t get into the book.

by Anonymous

reply 3

10/11/2018

Kubrick specifically cast her as her looks didn't automatically generate sympathy from the beginning.

by Anonymous

reply 4

10/11/2018

I thought she was tremendous in The Shinning. Perfect in the role.

by Anonymous

reply 5

10/11/2018

ITA, R5 (except for your spelling. Unless that was a Simpsons reference.)

Perfect casting.

A hot, blonde supermodel *may* have put up with Jack’s shit, but Shelley looked like an abused push-over that would ignore her gut instincts in favor of her bully husband’s version of things.

She rallied in the end, but really, the kid had to save his own ass. Born to two emotional cripples.

by Anonymous

reply 6

10/11/2018

What I want to know is what messed up Shelley duvall so badly mentally? What happened to her? Did all her friends abandon her?

by Anonymous

reply 7

10/11/2018

She was the PERFECT Olive Oyl.

by Anonymous

reply 8

10/11/2018

I love her, too. But people who don't like her in that don't usually like the movie version at all.

My back story for her character is that she and Jack were dating and she got pregnant, so they got married. He doesn't seem happy in the relationship- or with his life in general- and she's trying to hold it all together. There are hints at his violent temper.

Some of her scenes are over the top and that's the director's fault. He wasn't really a people director.

by Anonymous

reply 9

10/11/2018

Who in the world could hate Shelley Duvall? She was MISCAST in "The Shining"....that was the problem. An inexplicable decision made by famed auteur and super-genius Stanley Kubrick.

by Anonymous

reply 10

10/11/2018

by Anonymous

reply 11

10/11/2018

She was always an odd-duck talent, who blossomed under Altman to give terrific performances in NASHVILLE, THIEVES LIKE US, and especially in 3 WOMEN. But she didn't fare as well with other directors. She's actually effective in THE SHINING up to a point - frankly, it's Nicholson's overacting that really hurts the film.

R9's point is well-taken as Kubrick and screenwriter Diane Johnson portray a very different family dynamic than King's characters. If you're not a purist, you can see the value of a different approach given that the film is more about the breakdown of a family already at the tipping point by the time they reach the Overlook. Unfortunately, having set up that dynamic, Kubrick just keeps hitting the same notes over and over and the scenes between Nicholson and Duvall become tiresome after a while.

by Anonymous

reply 12

10/11/2018

[quote]How did someone as homely as Shelley Duvall even manage to get a career as a leading lady?

It was the 1970s. From the late 60s through the 70s, off-beat looking actors and actresses were a thing.

by Anonymous

reply 13

10/11/2018

R13, Stanley Kauffman aptly noted that Altman had a fetish for ugly women so he gave actresses like Duvall more chances than they deserved.

And her performance may be admired today, but when it was released, her performance was widely derided, not only for her acting but her appearance. Early audiences thought it was a joke, like she was Morticia Addams or something.

In the end, her Wendy might have stayed with Nicholson, but no way would his Jack ever marry her Wendy.

by Anonymous

reply 14

10/11/2018

I love Shelley Duvall. And no, she wouldn’t be a star because of her looks in 2018. Our loss.

I have heard people fault her casting in The Shining because she’s so offbeat and odd, while they were looking for normalcy to counterbalance Nicholson when he goes off the deep end.

But I like seeing someone who seems like a real person. I miss that about film in the the seventies.

And I second the upthread praise for her in 3 Women.

by Anonymous

reply 15

10/11/2018

Hello.

by Anonymous

reply 16

10/11/2018

r16, can you clarify for us who exactly that is in your video link?

by Anonymous

reply 17

10/11/2018

[quote]And her performance may be admired today, but when it was released, her performance was widely derided, not only for her acting but her appearance.

Audiences were very familiar with Shelly Duvall by the time the Shining was released.

"Three Women" got rave reviews as did Duvall's performance. She hosted SNL in the 70s...I remember her being well liked and considered cool.

Despite the initial reviews, the Shining was a commercial success.

by Anonymous

reply 18

10/11/2018

She is REALLY great in The Shining and lucky to have such a role in such a film. We'll always remember the great Shelley Duvall for a couple of good movies.

by Anonymous

reply 19

10/11/2018

45 years later you don't get her confused with ANY other actress the mark of a true original

by Anonymous

reply 20

10/11/2018

I always get Audrey Totter and Marie Windsor mixed up.

by Anonymous

reply 21

10/11/2018

She has taken a pretty effed up turn in life. So sad.

by Anonymous

reply 22

10/11/2018

R18 mainstream audiences were not familiar with her at all and "The Shining" was heavily marketed as a horror movie, which drew in a very different kind of crowd. One of the biggest laughs comes after Jack has his nightmare about killing the family and then suddenly looks at Wendy and says "ugh".

by Anonymous

reply 23

10/11/2018

Aside from some of the special effects, Duvall was one of the only good things about the film. Otherwise, the film sucked!

by Anonymous

reply 24

10/11/2018

I think with Duvall Kubrick was going for a very average looking everywoman. However he tended to cast 'movie stars' so you'd always be aware of the movie-ness of his work.

In one of the kitchen scenes she's preparing dinner, and as she empties an usually large—for three people that is—can of fruit cocktail into a bowl, she holds it against her stomach as it pours out. It's meant to look like her guts are pouring out.

Then there are the two shots with the knives pointing directly over Danny . . .

by Anonymous

reply 25

10/11/2018

Here we go again with the monster created by Robert Altman and the New Yorker. Nobody belonged in show business less than her. No wonder her life became such a tragedy. It's really the fault of the liars that said she should be an actress. 'Ol Pauline's "You go to her in delight, saying I'm yours" certainly belongs in Bartlett's.

by Anonymous

reply 26

10/11/2018

I'm not American, but I saw her in 3 Women and she was great! Loved that movie!

by Anonymous

reply 27

10/11/2018

She was perfect for the role in The Shining as a woman trying to hold it together while her husband quickly lost his grip. Can’t imagine a blonde supermodel doing the great portrayal she created, much less making her completely sympathetic for the audience.

by Anonymous

reply 28

10/11/2018

She was so wonderful in Three Women

by Anonymous

reply 29

10/11/2018

R23, as improbable as it seems Shelley Duvall was a star in the 70s.

by Anonymous

reply 30

10/11/2018

Of course she was miscast in 'The Shining." So was Jack Nicholson. Jack and Wendy Torrance were an attractive young couple. Duvall and Nicholson were older and much more unattractive. And their personalities were different too. Nicholson's Jack was crazy from the get go; in the novel Jack gradually becomes more and more insane as the hotel increases its hold on him. And Wendy was no whining, whimpering female; she was somewhat bitchy and had a lot of inner strength. What it comes down to is that Kubrick made "The Shining" HIS story, not Stephen King's. It was his vision, his ideas, not King's. Which is a major reason why King disliked the movie. Kubrick took his novel and changed it to fit his own viewpoint, which was definitely not King's.

by Anonymous

reply 31

10/11/2018

King disliked the casting because Kubrick cast actors that he thought stood in for Stephen and Tabitha King.

by Anonymous

reply 32

10/11/2018

This. Which makes sense since The Shining was basically about Stephen's alcoholism.

by Anonymous

reply 33

10/11/2018

King tried to shift the biographical aspect away by making the couple really attractive, and making the child a boy. But their first child, Naomi, was not a boy, and she was the one who suffered when he was drinking.

by Anonymous

reply 34

10/11/2018

I love the Shining, both the movie and the book. The two are very different in a lot of ways, and I like both. R31 is correct in his description as to why they are different.

I seriously doubt Steven King hated Shelley Duvall, because of her looks anyway. It's the entire change of the character's depiction in the film vs. what he had written. It does change the story. Her not being a blonde supermodel type had nothing to do with it.

Sissy Spacek and Piper are hardly what anyone would call traditional glamour girls in the movie Carrie, but he was completely fine with that film adaptation.

R20 said it best.

by Anonymous

reply 35

10/11/2018

^^ meant Piper Laurie

by Anonymous

reply 36

10/11/2018

r13 What the hell is that supposed to mean?

by Anonymous

reply 37

10/11/2018

Burr fucking roasts asshole Phil for his treatment of her.

by Anonymous

reply 38

10/11/2018

Love Duvall in the shining. I mean you would never guess her character would survive so she does end up having an inner strength or at least a gut instinct that guides her in the right direction. I honesty can’t imagine someone like Farrah fawcett in that role. It would take on a whole different vibe and the vibe of the overlook is a lot of what makes the film work.

by Anonymous

reply 39

10/11/2018

Are you inferring wrote Carrie and Margaret as glamour girls, r35? Why in the world would those roles be cast as glamour girls? Not a good comparison.

by Anonymous

reply 40

10/12/2018

Are you inferring King wrote....

by Anonymous

reply 41

10/12/2018

Every actress can't be pretty.

by Anonymous

reply 42

10/12/2018

[quote]King disliked the casting because Kubrick cast actors that he thought stood in for Stephen and Tabitha King.

I’ve read a lot about The Shining but never encountered this before. Don’t know whether it’s true, but it’s interesting.

by Anonymous

reply 43

10/12/2018

Duvall also had a small quirky part in Roxanne and she was really good. Movies in America are so bland and un-inventive in 2018. Superhero, comic book glut adnauseum. Trumps "money before everything" even in art.

by Anonymous

reply 44

10/12/2018

We had faces then.

by Anonymous

reply 45

10/12/2018

She stole the scene whenever she appeared in Nashville and Annie Hall. For all her goofy fragility, she had charisma. She was one of a kind.

by Anonymous

reply 46

10/12/2018

how would Talia Shire have fared in the role?

by Anonymous

reply 47

10/12/2018

Margot Kidder?

by Anonymous

reply 48

10/12/2018

Makes me sad whats become of her, I loved her look unique while not a bombshell. She was treated so poorly by Kubrick and Jack ass, she deserved better.

by Anonymous

reply 49

10/12/2018

She has a character actress face.

by Anonymous

reply 50

10/12/2018

[quote]She stole the scene whenever she appeared in Nashville and Annie Hall. For all her goofy fragility, she had charisma. She was one of a kind.

R23 Is trying to convince us that "mainstream audiences were not familiar with her at all " in 1980 when The Shining was released.

Nashville....Three Women...and why was she hosting Saturday Night Live if people had no idea who she was?

by Anonymous

reply 51

10/12/2018

R48 Margot did a variation on it in the Amityville Horror.

by Anonymous

reply 52

10/12/2018

[quote]In the end, her Wendy might have stayed with Nicholson, but no way would his Jack ever marry her Wendy.

He was an alcoholic loser who lost his job for roughing up a kid (not his own).

I live in the South and see young hot studs (usually) militray married to these obese cows with 3-4 kids (and growing).

Men marry women "beneath" them all the time. It is some form of stability for their fucked up lives.

by Anonymous

reply 53

10/12/2018

R51, she had supporting parts in those movies.

by Anonymous

reply 54

10/12/2018

[quote]she had supporting parts in those movies.

For "Three Women" she won best actress for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival...nominated for the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics.

by Anonymous

reply 55

10/12/2018

I loved her in The Shining. I think her odd looks really added to the overall creepiness of the film. She has an expressive face which worked well during the climax of the film. I couldn't imagine a better actress at the time who would have been as effective in the role.

by Anonymous

reply 56

10/12/2018

I'm always surprised at how divisive her performance in The Shining is, my mother hates her in the film and I think she's terrific. I haven't read the book and probably won't--the last King novel I read was Carrie and that was when I was in the 8th grade and as an adult I don't really read from the horror genre--so I see the film as a stand alone project (also never saw the remake with Steven Weber) and think it's a terrific film. Like all Kubrick's films there isn't an ounce of warmth to be found, but I think that adds to the hovering sense of desolation and despair that runs throughout the film.

I like Duvall's portrayal of Wendy as needy with no sense of self-worth, which is why an asshole like Nicholson's character would marry her in the first place (he knows she won't ever challenge him and will basically worship the ground he walks on), and just as someone said up above, the audience's thought of why someone like him would be with someone like her works, because that's what he's thinking as well. Add to that the history of abuse with the son (and a lot of other stuff that is unsaid but can be read into by just what a shambles Duvall's character is from the start of the film) which I think makes the story that much more sinister. You know that he's done so much more to her and the kid that is never mentioned in the film.

by Anonymous

reply 57

10/12/2018

[quote](also never saw the remake with Steven Weber)

DON'T!

Plus the kid playing Danny is beyond fug.

by Anonymous

reply 58

10/12/2018

She was so fragile and odd that you actually worried for her character in ‘The Shining’. When she -did- rally there was actual suspense as to whether she’d be able to help herself and her son. That’s -amazing- casting and it must have been why she was included in the film. It’s an absolutely iconic performance and only grows in stature. Still talked about 40yrs later.

by Anonymous

reply 59

10/12/2018

Didn't Nicholson say out of all the catresses he had ever worked with, Shelley was the most deserving of an Oscar?

by Anonymous

reply 60

10/12/2018

"Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl is miscast in the role she was born to play."

~P. Kael

by Anonymous

reply 61

10/12/2018

And Scatman Crothers got the role of a lifetime, after toiling for years as third banana in sitcoms.

by Anonymous

reply 62

10/12/2018

r58 Nails it! This little monster from the Young and the Restless was so hard to look at!

by Anonymous

reply 63

10/12/2018

I have hated Kubrick ever since he killed off the Scatman character so unceremoniously in the movie. In the book, he's a hero.

by Anonymous

reply 64

10/12/2018

R55 and how many people saw Three Women? Awkwafina hosted SNL last week. Is she well known to the public?

by Anonymous

reply 65

10/12/2018

If you think little Danny using his finger to "talk" for Tony is ridiculous...

Just wait til you see a disembodied floating queen screaming "Don't go in there Danny!" at him.

by Anonymous

reply 66

10/12/2018

R51, what in my posts suggests that she was not popular with mainstream audiences? I was just commenting on her unusual appeal.

by Anonymous

reply 67

10/12/2018

I have this vague memory.....wasn't she the first attached to Even Cowgirls..., years before Uma?

by Anonymous

reply 68

10/12/2018

The Dr. Phil takedown at r38 was a delight.

Duvall merits a good biographer who could cover her career and well as her mental illness with a modicum of respect.

by Anonymous

reply 69

10/12/2018

R68 Good memory:

August 1980 Warner Bros. signs Shelley Duvall (Popeye) to write and star in Cowgirls, which she describes two years later as ”my Cuckoo’s Nest.”

by Anonymous

reply 70

10/12/2018

Her character is supposed to be a little dim. So is Jack, but people love the character and Nicholson so much they miss it. He's not a smart guy.

I love it, I felt the whole scenario made more sense when you realized these were everyday people making poor decisions, but that his wife and kid were stronger and better equipped and were able to survive.

by Anonymous

reply 71

10/12/2018

It has been alluded to above, but it only dawned on me recently that the weird pajama-looking garment that Duvall wears in her first scenes is most likely intended as an indication that she dresses to cover bruises.

by Anonymous

reply 72

10/12/2018

You all are reading far too much into the character. It's a one-dimensional role because Kubrick was a misogynist and conceived the role purely as "empty-headed screaming wife" and forced Shelley Duvall to play it that way. She did great work in the Altman movies and elsewhere.

I remember her hosting SNL - the musical guest was Joan Armatrading. SNL used to be worth watching.

by Anonymous

reply 73

10/12/2018

R43 I used to know the family.

by Anonymous

reply 74

10/12/2018

Believing she's too ugly for the role is a really 2018 thing to think. She was always believable and I really can't imagine anyone else as Wendy.

by Anonymous

reply 75

10/12/2018

Sondra Locke is another one who would never make it today. The 70s were really a golden age for character actors.

by Anonymous

reply 76

10/12/2018

Now THERE’s a face I haven’t seen in a long time, holy shite! Isn’t she from Dirty Harry? I distinctly remember her being in a dime store being harassed by a gross man and she grabbed him by the balks, literally. It impressed me as a kid.

by Anonymous

reply 77

10/12/2018

Sondra was nominated for Best Actress in 1968 for The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. She gave up a promising career to be Clint Eastwood's side piece.

by Anonymous

reply 78

10/12/2018

R76 = Clint Eastwood

by Anonymous

reply 79

10/12/2018

But Sondra wasn't very good and I thought Shelley in her heyday was way better looking. That anemic blonde Dakota and Elle Fanning look is not one I like. Yeah, Sondra could still act with that look. She was like the poor man's Sally Kellerman.

by Anonymous

reply 80

10/12/2018

Sondra Locke directed the feverishly perverse and disturbing/pathetic ‘Ratboy’. She was nominated supporting for that movie mentioned above.. anyway. Remember her from Dirty Harry? I wish. I remember flipping channels and she was getting fucking gang raped on a train box car. Ripping shirt off, tittys flying out. It was terrible. Have no clue what movie. Clint came in and broke it up after a few minutes but it was sickening. Just a straight up rape lol.

by Anonymous

reply 81

10/12/2018

Love Shelley in Altman's "3 Women"

by Anonymous

reply 82

10/12/2018

Yikes I didn’t remember that rape scene, just the ball grabbing.

by Anonymous

reply 83

10/12/2018

Oh yeah, the rape scene! Another reason she just seems seedy to me. Those Dirty Harry movies and the first "Assault on Precinct 13" scared the shit out of young me but I loved them.

by Anonymous

reply 84

10/12/2018

I like Sondra. She's a friend to the gays.

by Anonymous

reply 85

10/12/2018

Oh good, the annual Shelley Duvall in The Shining thread!

by Anonymous

reply 86

10/12/2018

I believe we're discussing 'Shelley Duvall.'

by Anonymous

reply 87

10/12/2018

[quote]Who in the world could hate Shelley Duvall? She was MISCAST in "The Shining"....that was the problem.

It depends on what you mean by "miscast." IIRC, Wendy in the book was a typical generic "plucky" attractive blonde who immediately takes charge as soon as things go to shit and has a decent head on her shoulders. So if you mean Duvall was miscast in the sense that she was nothing like her, I agree.

But was she miscast in Kubrick's vision of The Shining? No. Kubrick wanted to make a terrifying movie (instead of just a cheap supernatural thriller), and she is a large part of the reason why it is so effective. It seems to me that Kubrick realized that if he had cast someone who looked and acted like "Book Wendy", that entire last act would've lacked tension. For example, imagine if someone like Nancy Allen had been cast. She would've played Wendy well but nobody would've really been on the edge of their seats when Jack goes on a rampage because it's become expected that the hot blonde lead actress will always survive.

Shelley Duvall was so cast against type (geeky, awkward, helpless, unfashionable and looked like she was totally out of her depth the entire time) that you had no idea what the hell would happen to her the entire time. That's because she didn't fit the mold of a survivor. You had to constantly keep guessing. I haven't watched The Shining in ages but there was a time when I'd watch the movie annually around Halloween and no matter how many times I saw it, I'd always be on the edge of my seat expecting Jack to just splatter her brains or feel a genuine sense of surprise when she rescues Danny and saves herself. She looks and plays the role of a dumb cluck so well that it always impresses me that she was able to get out of that situation alive.

And I actually have a major dose of respect for her in the end as a "heroine" because she really fucking earns it. To put it another way, her heroism wasn't "cheap" in the way it would've been had a different actress playing "plucky blonde Wendy". Shelley Duvall's version of Wendy starts out completely helpless and scared out of her wits looking like she's about to just give up any minute, but then somehow manages to find something within herself to survive. And that comes across as more powerful than had it played out the way everyone wanted it--ya know, already two steps ahead of Jack right off the bat and never really breaks a sweat.

by Anonymous

reply 88

10/12/2018

[quote][R13], Stanley Kauffman aptly noted that Altman had a fetish for ugly women so he gave actresses like Duvall more chances than they deserved.

*sighs*

I know Shelley Duvall has buck teeth and bug eyes and went out of her way to look weird later in life, but she was actually a model when she was younger.

by Anonymous

reply 89

10/12/2018

The TV version with Steven Weber was true to the book and I prefer it over the movie.

by Anonymous

reply 90

10/12/2018

I always thought Sissy Spacek was weird looking too.

by Anonymous

reply 91

10/12/2018

In the 70s Altman liked to cast actors who weren't conventional Hollywood types. E.g., Marta Heflin & Paul Dooley as the leads in "A Perfect Couple". If, like Duvall and Spacek, they could act well, who cares?

by Anonymous

reply 92

10/12/2018

[quote]I always thought Sissy Spacek was weird looking too.

She does look weird, but only because she fucked up her nose like Nanette Fabray. I call her the Hillbilly Space Alien.

by Anonymous

reply 93

10/13/2018

[quote] R1: How did someone as homely as Shelley Duvall even manage to get a career as a leading lady?

This made her perfect for the role. You immediately feel sorry for someone so helpless and homely. Also, while homely, I didn’t find her repulsive. Just more of a “Maryanne” girl next door type.

by Anonymous

reply 94

10/13/2018

I always thought Duvall had a very intriguing look, myself. She does herself no favors looks-wise in "The Shining" (and was very brave to do so), but Altman used her in ways that brought out a unique allure.

Pauline Kael noted that she was actually fetching as Olive Oyl.

by Anonymous

reply 95

10/13/2018

Her voice and her accent were kind of annoying. I remember critics mentioning that but overall she depicted her situation really well. I liked the way she revealed the horror of the gradual breakdown of her marriage and her husband's mental state. You felt her isolations and desperation. Is it true she was a model in the 70's?

by Anonymous

reply 96

10/13/2018

Well said R88

by Anonymous

reply 97

10/13/2018

R73, even if that was Kubrick's intent with the character of Wendy--and I have yet to find evidence that that was the case--to presume that the director's intent and interpretation of 'how' a film (or a performance for that matter) should be interpreted is the 'only true and correct interpretation', is a rather flimsy critical stance. 'Authorial intent' and 'Auteur theory' are rather antiquated and limited traditions of criticism and what a director 'intends' for an audience to take from a film and what an audience actually does are two distinctive things which sometimes coalesce but frequently do not.

by Anonymous

reply 98

10/13/2018

Well, pardon me while I play the grand piano.

by Anonymous

reply 99

10/13/2018

They should remake the Shining with Lens Dunham in the Shirley Duvale role.

by Anonymous

reply 100

10/13/2018

Shirley you jest

by Anonymous

reply 101

10/13/2018

No, I don't, and don't ever call me Shirley again.

by Anonymous

reply 102

10/13/2018

Sondra can get her own thread.

by Anonymous

reply 103

10/13/2018

I know duvall didn't get along with Kubrick, but what was her relationship with Altman?

by Anonymous

reply 104

10/13/2018

[quote] It's a one-dimensional role because Kubrick was a misogynist and conceived the role purely as "empty-headed screaming wife" and forced Shelley Duvall to play it that way.

You're such a halfwit. My God.

Movie Version Wendy was clearly married to a domestic abuser who has been both mentally and physically abusive towards them for many years, so she and Danny have been walking on egg shells around, terrified of setting him off. . It's not even subtly conveyed. (Nobody ever "accidentally" breaks their child's arm in a fit of rage as a one off. That is an indication of a very long history of violence.)

When Jack starts screaming at her during the "All work and no play" scene, people always think, "Oh, that's the demons making him do that." NO. The demons made him type that bullshit on the typewriter, but that threatening tirade he does after was all him, acting out in a way he's done so many times throughout their marriage before threatening/assaulting Wendy or Danny. That's how the abuse of always starts, accusations and tirades.

She starts crying and acting helpless after he goes off because that's what all victims do when their abusers start going off. They start to anticipate the violence or mentally abusive tirade that will come soon after and respond with helplessness and crying and shrinking back because they're thinking, "Oh, no. Not again. He's going to hit me again," or "Oh, no. He's been threatening to kill me for so long that he might do it this time."

So your assertion that "Kubrick was a misogynist and conceived the role purely as empty-headed screaming wife and forced Shelley Duvall to play it that way" is just asinine. It makes me even wonder if you actually watched the film.

by Anonymous

reply 105

10/13/2018

Shelley Duvall lives in Blanco, Texas - a town one hour west of Austin in the Hill Country - as a recluse . She's become the town "lunatic" and many of the small town folks treat her like she's completely crazy. And she does seem to have issues but she's not crazy. I've seen her in Blanco and I've talked to her a couple of times. She asks all the people she meets to "call me Shelley". I get the sense that her life is devoid of meaningful relationships and human contact. I think the National Enquirer kinda took advantage of her a few years ago and now she's more wary than ever of people trying to get close to her.

I have a weekend home in the Hill Country so that's why/how I know all this stuff.

by Anonymous

reply 106

10/13/2018

The Duvall defenders do sound an awful lot like the conspiracy theorists in "Room 237". Nothing more to see but an ugly performer.

by Anonymous

reply 107

10/13/2018

But let's face it, the moviegoing public threw her off the screen.

by Anonymous

reply 108

10/13/2018

R104 In this 2011 interview she has good things to say about Kubrick and Altman. She had her ups and downs with both, but doesn't portray herself as Kubrick's victim.

CS: Much has been said about your tumultuous relationship with Stanley Kubrick on the set; in retrospect what was it like working with the man?

Duvall: Oh, Stanley really gets a bad reputation sometimes but he was a perfectionist. We had our moments when we laughed and joked around on set, but then there were times that we just exploded at each other! I’m a very stubborn person and don’t like being bossed around and told what to do, Stanley pushed and pushed to get the performance out of me that he wanted. The script wasn’t really specific enough for me to understand what my character was going through mentally, I played it out as a battered but loving housewife who supports her husband through all the sh*t in their marriage. Stanley wanted a tough, strong, independent woman, I disagreed with that decision, but the way all my scenes worked out you see all those emotions in my character. What I thought my character should be and what he thought my character should be rolled into one. It was a hell of a shoot but he got what he wanted out of me!

by Anonymous

reply 109

10/13/2018

R81, it wasn't Dirty Harry, it was The Gauntlet. The scene is where three hippies (it was a Clint Eastwood movie remember) are in a boxcar and begin beating up Eastwood. Locke calls them a bunch of fags and then opens her blouse to distract them, one of whom is a dyke. Eastwood unties himself and then throws each one off the train. You can imagine what he does to the dyke. Here is the scene in Spanish.

by Anonymous

reply 110

10/13/2018

People, all this “they were miscast” “people thought this” blah, blah, blah - it’s Stanley Fucking Kubrick’s The Shining for fuck’s sake. You’re still talking about it nearly 40 fucking years later because it’s a goddamn classic.

Shelley Duvall was the personification of pure terror in that film. She’s as brilliant as anything else in the film.

And Stephen King can go fuck himself because I’ve seen the film It and It Sucked.

by Anonymous

reply 111

10/13/2018

Can Sondra please fuck off to her own thread??

by Anonymous

reply 112

10/13/2018

Not hippies, R110, some kind of motorcycle gang types.

by Anonymous

reply 113

10/13/2018

Lol thanks for posting the scene in Spanish. That used to play during the day on Cinemax or whatever and I was maybe 8 years old when I caught that. It was like ‘wtf’?! The dyke is punched lol.

by Anonymous

reply 114

10/13/2018

R114, she says to Clint "You wouldn't hit a lady, would you", which makes the payoff that much more hilarious.

by Anonymous

reply 115

10/13/2018

Sondra aged well.

by Anonymous

reply 116

10/13/2018

Gilda Radner and Dustin Hoffman were originally slated to play Olive Oyl and Popeye.

by Anonymous

reply 117

10/13/2018

R117, no it was Lily Tomlin. Radner's name came up when Williams was attached.

by Anonymous

reply 118

10/13/2018

Whoever said she’s not really crazy is stupid. It’s schizophrenia.

by Anonymous

reply 119

10/13/2018

Her performance in 3 women was one of the best in female acting.

by Anonymous

reply 120

10/13/2018

R119 or Alzheimer’s or dementia.. Schizophrenia usually has onset in the late teens.

by Anonymous

reply 121

10/13/2018

Is anyone going to say anything about that long piece of ash at the end of her cigarette (OP photo)?

by Anonymous

reply 122

10/13/2018

Watch the Shining docu with those whack jobs. They certainly have something to say about it.

by Anonymous

reply 123

10/13/2018

I thought she was great. She played the damaged wife well. There seemed something off about her which added to the atmosphere, now we know why I guess

by Anonymous

reply 124

10/13/2018

She got to me a catalogue model (far from a cover girl) because she was tall and eating disorder skinny - the same can be said for many models of today.

The 70s equivalent of hipsters wrote fawning articles on her (and I’m sure she had an aggressive publicist at one point) trying to make her happen, in this too cool for school kind of way (oooh I’m so edgy, I’m a Shelley Duvall fan), but audiences couldn’t have given a f - probably because there’s a difference between off beat endearing and off beat annoying. Sometimes the PR machine fails miserably at foisting an actor or personality onto the general public.

And yes I get that there were many leading and supporting actresses of the 70s who were not conventionally beautiful, but definitely attractive/pretty. Shelley Duvall was not one of them.

by Anonymous

reply 125

10/13/2018

Shelly was cast as she was portrayed in the book as an "everywoman" I don't recall her in the book as being some hot piece of ass, although King always did love to talk about the legs on his wife in real life and as she was portrayed in however character in his books.

by Anonymous

reply 126

10/14/2018

[quote]but audiences couldn’t have given a f - probably because there’s a difference between off beat endearing and off beat annoying. Sometimes the PR machine fails miserably at foisting an actor or personality onto the general public.

So you're speaking for "the public"?

I remember her being well liked and critics praising her work.

by Anonymous

reply 127

10/14/2018

r126 No she was described as hot, and a blonde, I remember the total disparity and being outraged by it when I read the Shining in my teens.

by Anonymous

reply 128

10/14/2018

I thought she was great in 'The Shining' and brilliant in '3 Women.' She deserved the 1977 Best Actress Oscar for the latter.

And, to be honest, I much prefer interesting, unique faces like Duvall's to blandly pretty ones.

by Anonymous

reply 129

10/14/2018

She lost it kind of late in life. What's up with that? Early dementia? It's not schizophrenia.

by Anonymous

reply 130

10/14/2018

She's seriously mentally ill poor thing. The way she was mistreated no doubt contributed. Probably bipolar.

by Anonymous

reply 131

10/14/2018

R114 R115 enjoying a gay bashing scene. Jeebus, some fucked up people here.

by Anonymous

reply 132

10/14/2018

Nene Leaks and Lil' Wayne were originally scheduled to play Olive Oyl and Popeye.

by Anonymous

reply 133

10/16/2018

R132, the dyke beats the shit out of Clint when he's tied up. Hence the punch in the face.

by Anonymous

reply 134

10/16/2018

No mention of "Faerie Tale Theatre"? She used whatever clout and money she had to produce something truly innovative and won the cooperation of the day's biggest stars. She had a lot going for her at her peak.

I'm sorry she's not on the scene anymore. Hollywood is dead.

by Anonymous

reply 135

10/16/2018

Yes r135, if you go up you will see her impressive "Hello, I'm Shelley Duvall" compilation.

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